Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the aircraft helped drop GPS-guided bombs on an array of targets, including militants’ headquarters, training camps, barracks and combat vehicles.
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The F-22’s apparent success is a dramatic turnaround from three years ago, when the fighter was grounded for nearly five months because of safety problems stemming from a faulty oxygen supply system.
For a while, the plane’s future was very much in doubt.
The sleek, diamond-winged fighter was conceived during the Cold War to thump a new generation of Soviet jets in dogfights. But after the Soviet Union collapsed, Moscow never built those fighters.
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